Arteris (Paris) said Janac would be responsible for growing and establishing a strong global presence for both the company and the concept of network-on-chip technology.

Arteris claims that its network-on-chip technology can halve the gate count and triple the clock frequency of complex, bus-based system-on-chips (SoCs) at a cost of $350,000 to $500,000 for a single-design license.

Alain Fanet, founder and initial CEO at Arteris, will become the company's chief technology officer and continue to guide its product strategy, oversee the continued expansion of innovation and intellectual property assets and develop worldwide industry alliances, Arteris said.

In a career spanning 20 years, Janac has held executive positions in several semiconductor-related industries, including EDA, capital equipment, nanotechnology, industrial polymers and venture capital. He spent the first 10 years of his career in various marketing and sales positions at Cadence Design Systems Inc.

Janac later became president of HLD Systems. He went on to form Smart Machines, a manufacturer of semiconductor automation equipment that was eventually snapped up by Brooks Automation Inc. in 1999. He also spent a year as entrepreneur-in-residence at venture capital firm Infinity Capital and most recently served as president and CEO of Nanomix, a startup nanotechnology company.

Janac said in a statement that it is an exciting time to be entering such a critical technology space. "Given the complexity of today's SoCs, it makes more sense to move information in the form of packets rather then bits," Janac said. "I believe that the network-on-a-chip, NoC, approach will be the dominant flexible interconnect technology for on-chip communications within five years."

Janac is the brother of George Janac, founder and executive chairman of Giga Scale Integration Corp.